Christmas 2011

Forts were in Santa's sleigh this year for the kids at our house. Some months ago I saw this on pinterest and thought @ needed a reading nook. I put it in the back of my mind as something I could probably put together without a problem once we returned home. Jonathan saw it and he wanted one too (who doesn't?). So once we were home he started searching out the best size pipe and tweeking the design a bit.
A friend of ours had to get a new fridge a few weeks back. They kept the box thinking perfect ! fort. A day or two before Christmas we cut into it, opened up an end and put a porthole in the top. We been finding both children inside of it and ! has decided its her secret lair for things she knows she's not supposed to have- like daddy's day planner.

What we thought was going to be the BIG surprise of christmas was kind of a yay, middle surprise. Someone at church was selling their Wii that they didn't use much. So we jumped on it- this was back in the summer. We brought it back here, put it in the drawer and finally got it out for Christmas. I'm happy to have the drawer back. The Wii is ok. Our 7 yr. old @ can be a bit of a no it all because he's played the Wii before but he learned from 4 yr old, which increasingly becomes obvious as he really needs to settle down a listen to directions. The first day was full of us wondering why we had brought this evil to our house. The second day was much better. Jonathan and I learned to use it a bit, set up the internet connection so we can read the morning news. Last evening we played bowling and tennis and it was a little like being on a date. So we're learning to enjoy it and @ is learning to be patient with himself as he learns to play games- he was a great bowler though!

I'll get a finished product picture of the fort in his room later but this is the fort with his stocking underneath. The design on the site we saw had the fort entirely wrapped with sheeting. No way were we doing that here- way too hot! My first idea was to take some material and use binder clips on the sides, or to hot glue the fabric stretched over the top. Jonathan remembered this sheet set we were given- its roughly a queen size sheet but the elastic fit perfectly over the corners.